This new moon in Aquarius ushers in not only a new lunar cycle, but also a new lunar year. It is the year of the Wooden Snake, and as we travel into the watery woods of this moon, we also move beneath the earth’s surface into the budding, awakening, gentle stirring of Lunar Imbolc.
Welcome to this potent moment of inner realms, visionary mind, out of the box thinking, deep dive into soulful soil, and the magic of renewal.
If you’re in LA and you’ve been hit hard in the recent fires, this message may feel too much of a reach right now. Or it may feel like the very pull that you need toward the next phase in this crisis. Wherever this meets you – fire related or other heartbreaking situations – honor the space you’re in, let this be an invitation to explore with honesty where this moon and its messages touch you.
If you are struggling right now, I am sending you softness and strength, and a gentle reminder that change is continuously unfolding. It may not be easy, but things will shift. Grieve and cry and kick and scream as needed. Breathe into the difficulty. Fill it with Prana – the life force of the universe that moves through all that exists. Breathe out and allow even just a momentary release. You got this. Slow inhale. Slow exhale. You got this.
The Aquarius archetype shows up in us as a community oriented energy. The impulse to show up for others. A vision that extends toward the collective, into our interconnectedness. There’s a revolutionary spirit to this zodiac character. They are ahead of their time. And they want to take all of us with them into what they see is possible. They see the change that can take place, they see where we can go from here, and they don’t want to waste any time. “Humanity can do better!” they say. “Why are we still where we are?! Let’s fucking go!”
Where do you feel the pull to go? What must change right now?
Aquarius is the water bearer. They carry the flow of life in their vessel. Life sustaining, nourishing, humanitarian energy. Aquarius is an air sign; the breath of fresh air, and the power of Prana. They bring from the depth of existence the creative fluids of possibility. New ways. Fresh outlooks. Renewed interest. Revelations. New life. Different energy. New cycles.
For several Asian cultures, the Lunar New Year marks a new beginning. A start of a fresh cycle. This is such a wonderful invitation a month into the new Gregorian year. If you feel like your visions and intentions for the year were dropped, have been scattered, were severed, or have gone up in flames, this is a potent new beginning moment to tap into (not in an inappropriate appropriating way). It doesn’t need to come from your belief in anything. It doesn’t need to feel whole or clear. Rather, it is an invitation to pick up threads of inspiration, and gently weave them into your life. Slowly. Sensitively. Softly.
The season is shifting in a delicate way. We’re moving toward mid Winter. It isn’t yet a glorious rise of flourishing expressions of our inner dreams, but rather a slow and gentle, yet ever strengthening stirring within the soil. This time of year is Imbolc time. Imbolc is Irish for “in the belly.” In the belly of the earth life begins to spin into form. In the darkness of the season we begin to see the growing light. In the soil the seeds begin to shift from incubation toward sprouting. In the deep inner realms we dare to renew our commitment to our values and visions, and to make the changes we feel are needed. In the ways that we move through the world we begin to implement the work we’ve been doing.
Imbolc is a Celtic holiday celebrating Winter’s promise that Spring will come. It is a gateway of vision and dream moving from the unseen toward uttering itself into being. A transition. A spark. A possibility slowly sending signals of becoming.
The visionary power of Aquarius meets the quickening within the belly of the earth. What ideas are you feeling cracking within you, breaking the shell of their seed, reaching for expression? In what way does the revolutionary air of Aquarius breathes into the depth of what’s bubbling under the surface? What wants to rise? Could an out of the box perspective help it find its way toward the sun?
Imbolc is the time when plants and serpents seek to rise. Serpents are symbols of feminine power – not in gender but in code. The power of the serpent, if you look at the yoga tradition, shows up as Kundalini. She is the power of awakening, of seeing things in new ways, of removing the veils and revealing something that was hidden before, of stirring the energy, clearing the path, cultivating wisdom, and rising toward great love, rising toward broad perspective.
So many ancient cultures viewed snakes as feminine symbols. I love seeing the ways that humanity connects, and how different cultures saw things in similar ways, and how much of an overlap there is between different traditions. From Babylonian through Egyptian cultures, and across Euro-Asia, Serpents were the symbol of The Goddess. Serpents decorated queens (think Cleopatra). They’ve been symbols of wild wisdom and the damp, dark places of fertile power. Residents of the fertile void that is the origin of all that exists. The symbol of the snake in Chinese mythology and astrology embodies Yin qualities; feminine, dark, moist. The snake is also seen as a little dragon, whose shedding skin holds good fortune and rebirth.
Kundalini is the serpent goddess, dormant and coiled at the base of the Śusumna Nadi, until she awakens (usually through practice) and rises up the central channel of energy, opening, cleansing, spinning the Ćakras into alignment, and finally reaching the top, to take the seat of infinity.
We can dance with the serpent as the feminine. We can expand our view, Kundalini style, and feel into the serpent as a being beyond binaries. Kundalini can be the energy that invites us to keep the process of awakening alive, instead of sending it toward a final destination. Let the serpent be a goddess. Let the serpent be an entity. Let the energy be a symbol. Let the symbol unfold its meaning.
Kundalini’s journey doesn’t need to end with her arrival at the Sahasrara Ćakra, and her merging with her beloved Śiva – vast consciousness meditator extraordinaire. I don’t want to get too deep into this here, but I’ll just touch on it a bit, and you can go with it and bring it into your own processing:
When we look at Kundalini as an energy whose job is solely to take us up, we miss the power of the serpent.
Snakes are subterranean creatures. They move in the dark. They slither on the ground. They move on the horizontal plane. They are beings of deep, dark caves within which great vision can arise. Let’s not waste Kundalini’s power on ascension only. Let’s let her live within the great pulse of possibility, rise and descend, and do the important work of not only moving in one direction, but learning how to crawl through the crevices, and see in more than one way. The perspective we gain at the top is important, but so is the one we get from deep down in the soil, and so are the ones we get when we move horizontally.
There is an innovative and inventive energy to Aquarius, and a call to do things differently where the old ways fail, with a bit of a rebel flare.
I have so many thoughts and ideas running through me as I write this. So many connections made, so many conversations in my head all at the same time. I feel the Aquarian energy, which is often described as an electrical current (or two if you look at the symbol of Aquarius ♒).
As an air sign, Aquarius is associated with the mind. Its expansive perspective invites us to open and free our minds, to revolutionize the ways we’ve been thinking, and to activate the intellect from a heartfelt place, from the heart of humanity, from the heart of the planet.
As this new lunar cycle and new lunar year begin, where is your heart, dear one? Let the serpent lead you into it, and in its deep, dark, moist embrace, let yourself awaken to the pulse of yourself, in this moment, as it connects to a wider web of time and space.
Sending you New Moon, New Lunar Year, and Lunar Imbolc love,
Hagar